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Poll: Most Americans Back Obama on Stimulus, Mortgage Plans

Bipartisan Support Drops Significantly as More Republicans Disapprove of How President Is Handling Job

 

By Michael A. Fletcher and Jon Cohen

Washington Post Staff Writers

Monday, February 23, 2009; 5:00 PM

 

As President Obama prepares to address a joint session of Congress tomorrow night, he receives strong grades for his first full month in office, as large majorities of Americans support his $787 billion economic stimulus package and the recently unveiled $75 billion plan for stemming mortgage foreclosures, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

 

Nearly seven in 10 believe Obama is delivering on his pledge to bring needed change to Washington, the poll found, and about eight in 10 say he is meeting or exceeding their expectations. At the same time, however, the bipartisan support he enjoyed as he prepared to take office has eroded substantially.

 

Just 37 percent of Republicans now approve of how he has done his job, a sharp drop from a month ago when 62 percent gave him good marks for his handling of the transition. Also, nearly seven in 10 Americans oppose making $14 billion in new loans to automakers General Motors and Chrysler, something Obama is considering in an effort to prop up the ailing industry and preserve jobs.

 

In his speech to Congress, Obama is expected to further outline his agenda for making health care more accessible and bolstering support for alternative energy, while explaining how he envisions his actions working together to lift the nation's economy. The speech comes as Obama, who spent his first weeks in office championing the huge federal outlays called for in his stimulus package, shifts the focus to his pledge to rein in federal spending, which he has called crucial to the nation's long-term prosperity.

 

Almost all Americans consider the size of the federal budget deficit to be a problem, with nearly six in 10 "very concerned" about it. But even so, most, 63 percent, said additional federal action will be needed to improve the economy.

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Right or wrong, people are hurting and need help. The aversion to the economic equivalent of "tough love" is completely understandable when the tough love would mean you get to be hungry and homeless.

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Most people in America supported the Iraq war before we found out it was a complete waste.

 

Marketing, they were hit with a near unanimous wall of approval fromthe press with very little opposition. Just as Obam's lowered Republican approval ratings are as much a function of marketing as anything else. The press still sells everything as if it deserves equal time when not all ideas or thoughts do deserve it, especially not the failed notions of the past eight years.

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Guest Wilco Rules Me
Right or wrong, people are hurting and need help. The aversion to the economic equivalent of "tough love" is completely understandable when the tough love would mean you get to be hungry and homeless.

 

Government will not make the situation better. They will prolong they inevitable. Taking another person's money to provide for someone else is illegal.

 

Hungry and homeless is far from reality for 99.999% of the people involved. Moving to an apartment that is far less expensive than the current house that they are residing is more appropriate. Perhaps cutting the cable, internet and turning off some cell phones would help too.

 

To prevent a private business from collecting their money or property so they can in turn sell it off will have devastating consequences.

 

Yet another Government intervention with terrible unintended consequences.

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Marketing, they were hit with a near unanimous wall of approval fromthe press with very little opposition. Just as Obam's lowered Republican approval ratings are as much a function of marketing as anything else. The press still sells everything as if it deserves equal time when not all ideas or thoughts do deserve it, especially not the failed notions of the past eight years.

 

A better word is propaganda. Politics. They use fear to sell an idea. It was a method that Bush used to sell war. Now Obama is using it to pass gigantic stimulis and bailouts.

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A better word is propaganda. Politics. They use fear to sell an idea. It was a method that Bush used to sell war. Now Obama is using it to pass gigantic stimulis and bailouts.

 

It has been done since the dawn of ages.

 

I do not think that both problems are inconsequential. I just do not like the means in which both Presidents tackled their problems.

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Government will not make the situation better. They will prolong they inevitable. Taking another person's money to provide for someone else is illegal.

 

Hungry and homeless is far from reality for 99.999% of the people involved. Moving to an apartment that is far less expensive than the current house that they are residing is more appropriate. Perhaps cutting the cable, internet and turning off some cell phones would help too.

 

To prevent a private business from collecting their money or property so they can in turn sell it off will have devastating consequences.

 

Yet another Government intervention with terrible unintended consequences.

While there are certainly people who lived beyond their means and will now, perhaps deservedly, move down a few notches on the ladder, hard economic times always hurt people on the margins the most. I don't know, but I have a feeling that group makes up a little bit more than 0.001 percent of the population. And, I think it is only illegal to "another person's money to provide for someone else" in Ayn-Randia. C'mon, dude. Even Greenspan is for nationalization nowadays.

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While there are certainly people who lived beyond their means and will now, perhaps deservedly, move down a few notches on the ladder, hard economic times always hurt people on the margins the most. I don't know, but I have a feeling that group makes up a little bit more than 0.001 percent of the population. And, I think it is only illegal to "another person's money to provide for someone else" in Ayn-Randia. C'mon, dude. Even Greenspan is for nationalization nowadays.

 

Ayn Rand was brilliant. However I like the brilliance behind the Constitution more.

 

Greenspan was for the dollar to be backed by gold, until he sold out and got the big job. Now Greenspan is wrong.

 

To take a man's money against his will for whatever the reason is still wrong.

 

I understand the need for taxes and all that jazz (more at State level, less at federal), but what we got going on here surpasses any argument that this is just taxes. This is buying votes, this is fraud at its cleverest form.

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Ayn Rand was so deluded she did not know how evil her philosophy truly was. Objectivism is the most brilliantly rationalized Satanism ever.

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Ayn Rand was so deluded she did not know how evil her philosophy truly was. Objectivism is the most brilliantly rationalized Satanism ever.

 

In all matters being true:

 

How could the idea of carrying for your own interests be evil?

 

To obtain one's interest he/she must communicate and agree with another in a way that satisfies both interests.

 

Government comes around and takes away the civility of it all.

 

If you want to help others you have that sole choice to do so. But you cannot make others act in your belief.

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In all matters being true:

 

How could the idea of carrying for your own interests be evil?

 

To obtain one's interest he/she must communicate and agree with another in a way that satisfies both interests.

 

Government comes around and takes away the civility of it all.

 

If you want to help others you have that sole choice to do so. But you cannot make others act in your belief.

I realize that sounds good on paper, but look what basing an economic system based on no restraints and hoping everyone would behave because it was in their self-interest to do so got us. For a lefty, I take a pretty dim view of people. I think we are by and large greedy, selfish, short-sighted and mean, and if it was left to us to completely run our own affairs, we would all be in Nasty-Brutish-Short mode before too terribly long. To me, the ideal of government is to take the better angels of our nature and codify them into law.

Now, since I am a Christian, what Rand touted is anathema to what God asks us to do - watch out for each other and care for the weak and vulnerable among us, whether we feel like it or not. Lucifer was cast down because he put his misguided pursuit of his own happiness before all else, a train of thought which led him to rebel against God. I believe as Rand was writing every word she ever wrote, Satan was whispering in her ear.

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Very interesting story for you geeky math types, and even those that aren't.

 

Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street

 

By Felix Salmon

 

A year ago, it was hardly unthinkable that a math wizard like David X. Li might someday earn a Nobel Prize. After all, financial economists

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Wow, that's just creepy as hell - thinking pearls on a droid look good.

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I watched that kid on Huckabee last night. He seems exceptionally bright and articulate. And even though he mostly just regurgitated the usual talking points, at least he did so with more flair and personality than, say, Bobby Jindal.

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